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<br />1..13 -'3';( <br />Uu '" v <br /> <br />Senate Committee on Agriculture and Water Resources <br />Assembly Committee on Water, Parks, and Wildlife <br />Page 3 <br />August 31,2001 <br /> <br />Program for river diversions, both of which are different than originally envisioned by the <br />Agencies and others but still achieve the desired results. <br /> <br />General Status and Progress to Date <br /> <br />The current California Plan effort can be divided into 4 areas: legal documentation, <br />environmental reviews, satisfaction of conditions precedent, and program and project <br />implementation. <br /> <br />The legal documentation for the Quantification Settlement Agreement (QSA) has for the most <br />part been completed, with the notable exception of the environmental cost sharing agreement and <br />the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB) water transfer petition related documents. <br />We don't foresee any problems in completing these documents within the required timeframe for <br />their execution. The only obstacle or condition precedent affecting the timing of their execution <br />is the completion of the environmental reviews and the SWRCB water transfer petition review <br />process. Besides the QSA and related documents, other important components of the California <br />Plan, such as the proposed Land Management, Crop Rotation, Water Supply Program between <br />MWD and Palo Verde Irrigation District (PVID) and the proposed storage and conjunctive use <br />programs, will require their own agreements. <br /> <br />With respect to the environmental reviews related to the QSA, our schedule calls for <br />completion of all reviews by early 2002. This will allow for subsequent activities required for the <br />effectiveness of the QSA to occur, notably the SWRCB water transfer petition review process. <br />The QSA cannot become effective unless all conditions are satisfied by December 31, 2002. The <br />environmental reviews tied directly to the QSA and the Guidelines include the Secretarial <br />Implementation Agreement Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), the QSA programmatic <br />Environmental Impact Report (EIR), the canal lining projects EIS/EIRs, the IID/SDCW A and the <br />IID/CVWD/MWD option water transfers EIS/EIR, and lID Habitat Conservation Plan (HCP). <br />The critical path for the environmental reviews has been and continues to be the lID/SDCW A <br />EIS/EIR and lID HCP, or more specifically how to address the Salton Sea. <br /> <br />Except with regard to the Salton Sea, agreement on environmental mitigation and endangered <br />species compliance will be reached on in-valley (area where conservation is to occur), on-river <br />(where the change in diversion point will occur), and service area (where conserved water is to <br />be used) for the core transfers. All of these environmental reviews rely on and tier off each other <br />and consequently affect each other's completion timelines. The environmental reviews for the <br />proposed storage and conjunctive use programs and other cooperative water supply programs are <br />not part of the QSA and are not prerequisites for the QSA implementation or the continuation of <br />the Guidelines. <br /> <br />The only major unresolved issues concerning federal and state environmental mitigation and <br />endangered species compliance are: (1) how to address the core transfers' temporal effect on <br />accelerating Salton Sea salinity increases by 1 to 8 years sooner than without the transfers, and <br /> <br />3 <br />